Since 2008, PAV – Experimental Centre for Contemporary Art is many things at one and the same time: a public area in a city undergoing transformation, an open-air exhibition site, an interactive museum, a place for meetings and workshops, a research centre aware of ongoing dialogues between art and nature, biotechnology and ecology, between the general public and artists. Conceived by artist Piero Gilardi and developed with landscape architect Gianluca Cosmacini, PAV comprises the interactive installation Bioma.

The PARK, a green place in continual evolution, occupies an ex-industrial area of some 23,000 m2 where, as well as Trèfle, an environmental art installation by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, and Jardin Mandala, a garden designed by landscapist Gilles Clément, other relational, participatory works take shape time to time. Since 2010 the international competition PAV PRIZE has also been held annually in order to realize an environmental artwork in the park.

The ART PROGRAM, directed by Piero Gilardi and curated by Claudio Cravero, unfolds as Italian and international artists put in place contemporary artworks and installations: permanent and temporary, both outdoors and in the indoor exhibition areas. The field of investigation is Living Art, a declination of the contemporary trends that together make up Bioart, Biotech Art, Transgenic Art and the so-called Ecological Art. These experimentations include organic and inorganic materials, where life – with bioethical reflections on the use of certain practices – may be also induced by biotechnological means.